Bitcoin and Ether Market Update: May 16, 2019

Total crypto market cap added yet another $31.2 billion to its value since Monday, May 13 and now stands at $261.5. Top ten currencies are all in green for the 24-hour period with Stellar (XLM) and ether (ETH) leading the pack with 24 percent and 16 percent of gains respectively. At the time of writing bitcoin (BTC) is trading at $8,161 on the Bitstamp daily chart, while ether (ETH) stands at $265 and Ripple’s XRP climbed to $0.456.

BTC/USD

Bitcoin closed the previous week with a 22.5 percent of price increase, successfully breaking the $7,000 barrier. Just three days earlier it moved above the $6,000 level confirming the return of the bull market.

On Monday, May 13, the BTC/USD pair added another 12 percent to its value by moving north to $7,803. Buyers were even able to push the price above $8,000 for a certain period of time during the day.

The most popular cryptocurrency climbed to $7,978 on May 14 in another winning session. On Wednesday, May 15, it formed its third consecutive green candle, crossing $8k to stop at $8,204. The 2.5 percent increase helped the total market cap climb to $260 billion regions.

The Hong Kong-based cryptocurrency derivatives platform BitMEX registered a record-breaking $10 billion 24h trading volume. The news was announced by the company CEO Arthur Hayes on May 12.

In the meantime, the biggest spot-market crypto exchange in terms of daily volume, Binance confirmed it will be returning to a normal mode of operations following the recent hack attack against its bitcoin wallet. The Malta-based platform informed it will reopen deposits and withdrawals on May 15 after they performed system upgrades one day earlier.

As BTCManagerreported, Binance suffered a security breach on May 8, which resulted in a $40 million worth of bitcoin being withdrawn from its hot wallet.

The institutional crypto investing platform Bakkt announced on May 13, that it plans to launch bitcoin futures trading and custody in early July 2019. The new product will be developed in collaboration with ICE Futures U.S. and ICE Clear US, both part of the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), which is also the parent company of Bakkt.

According to the company CEO, Kelly Loeffler, the bitcoin futures will be listed on a federally regulated futures exchange and will offer two different types of contracts: daily settlement bitcoin future and a monthly bitcoin futures.

ETH/USD

The Ethereum Project token added 16 percent to its value during the last week and entered the new one at $188. The psychological level of $200 was already in sight for bulls as ETH was once of the best performing altcoins in the recently reborn bull market.

On May 13, the ETH/USD pair broke above the $200 line during the day session just to close at $196. It gained 10.7 percent on the next day, May 14, to storm past the mentioned price level stopping at $217.

On May 15, the ether formed its sixth green candle in the last seven sessions and climbed all the way up to $249. One of the most popular altcoins added increased by 14 percent and is already eyeing the important level at $300.